Millenial Motherhood U̵n̵plugged

Marie Kondo Who?

Just kidding, I’m sure she’s great. I just haven’t yet read her book, though I am sure I’d like it, and I haven’t watched her show yet, though I’m sure it would spark even more OCD in me. However, I do know I like to keep a tidy home. When we first moved into a space as “adults” I quickly learned that I liked to maintain my home organized, but it may be overwhelming to start.

The first thing I realized was that everything needs a “home”. You can’t keep a space organized if your things don’t have a place to go to be put away. So no matter where you are organizing, keep that in mind.

Recently I used box containers to tackle two spaces that I see all day daily. I needed them to feel organized and aesthetically pleasing at the same time. I revamped the pantry and the playroom closet. These spaces get touched each day more than once a day, so they needed a format that would allow me to put them back together easily.

The common rules of organizing a closet space with containers:

take everything out

purge

sort

categorize, by same or like items

place in boxes or containers by category

label

purge again when you notice things getting crammed

For the playroom I took out toys that the kids hadn’t played with in a while, gave away stuffed animals galore that didn’t have meaning or weren’t looked at any more, and began organizing things into like categories. Ex: barbies, veterinarian, coloring tools, coloring books, play doh, play doh tools, balls, Fancy Nancy, electronics, LOL dolls, snap dress dolls, etc. Some boxes have some boxes inside to keep smaller things together, but I digress. The point is to form like groups that can all fit into one storage box. Then you must label it. This is for the kids as much as it is you. For them it’s a great intro to a print rich environment. Seeing letters and associating them to sounds. Sounds silly, but it’s teacher 101 stuff. For you, it’s easy to help and encourage picking up and putting away. It also helps your baby sitter or family members keep up the routine when you’re not there. Kids like to forget where things go so they don’t have to put them away. Squash that idea real quick!

The pantry was similar to the playroom. I began by pulling everything out and purging. For the pantry it means removing what is expired 🤣. But seriously, you’d be surprised how much old stuff is just lurking in the back of your pantry. I had everything already sort of categorized but I kind of dug deeper for our lifestyle. For example I separated snacks from chips. We have a lot of chips in our home and I wanted things to stay in their section so I gave chips their own spot. Snacks actually has to boxes. I keep the lower snacks with kid friendly, don’t mind if they dig into when I’m not looking section. And upper snacks are for us or things we don’t want them to eat or snack on when we’re not looking. Your pantry will look completely different in the sense that you like certain things and they fall into YOUR categories. My categories include: breakfast, snacks, chips, storage, pasta/rice, baking, medicine, vitamin/daily meds, sweets, non perishables and overflow drinks.

Note that both spaces have a lot more going on for them organization-wise, but what I really wanted to focus on here was how to use these storage bins to categorize and organize your spaces.

The bins are my favorites for $5.99 (marked down from $9.99) from Hobby Lobby. They come out once a year in their Spring Shop which is live right now!

The clips I use to attach the label to the bins is from amazon, you can grab them here. It’s a set of 20 for $12.

My labels are actually cut up file folders I had sitting around. You could always do small chalkboard tags and attach them using the same clips. Here are two options (1 & 2). If you go this route I recommend using a chalk pen so that it’s not so easy to remove with little wet hands.

That is all my friends! Go to your local Hobby Lobby or shop online to snag these while they’re in stock. I literally waited a whole year to complete my collection because soon they go on major sale and they sell out quick.